Blogs from Los Glaciares National Park , Santa Cruz, Argentina, South America - page 5

... and because I seem to like write blog entries in pairs; TOP FIVE heroes and villains: HEROES 1. Janet the park ranger in NZ. This spritely 60plus year old met us when we finished our second day of Kepler track having jumped from a hovering helicopter up to her waist in snow on the narrowest of mountain ridges and then spent half a day shoveling clear a series of steps called the ´Great Wall´ before hiking half a dozen miles back to the hut to get a fire going for the ´hardened walkers´who later tramped through... 2. Young girl in Panama old town who sorted us out a place to stay with her friend after we arrived late with nothing sorted and a bit jet lagged after 36hrs of travelling across ten time zones from ... read more

Leaving BA All packed and a little sad to be leaving our little flat, our trip to Patagonia didn´t get off to the most auspicious start. Stavi was unwell, though whether it was the quantity of red wine consumed over the week or something she ate, I don´t think we´ll ever know! Stavi slept through the flight down and for me the boredom of the three hour flight, having finished all my books, was broken only by the delight of a double helping of lunch! El Calafate Recommended by Dave and Carolyn we´d booked the America del Sur hostel (thank you!). It´s the first time I´ve ever had to introduce myself to every member of staff in a hostel! Albeit a little full on, in the absence of my interpreter, I quickly found them incredibly friendly, ... read more

El Chalten is Argentina's newest town - est 1985! Built exclusively as a gateway for Argentina's hiking center, the Fitz Roy Massif. Situated in Nacional Park Los Glaciers. Trekking here was an easy change to trails of Chile's Torres Del Paine. The trails were well marked and maintained. All streams and rivers had sterdy bridge cover and there were even steps formed into some of the mud slopes. Our first trek was to hike to Laguna Los Tres - base camp Fitz Roy. With the weather being perfect it was the ideal time to see the range in all its glory. Only one hour into the trek came the first lookout. We were greeted with a dramatic consortium of rugged spires sitting calmly in the morning sun, with a back drop of blue skies and a ... read more

I like to walk on ice. Buried down in my list of blogs there are... 3 other blogs with glacier walks, all in Alaska. So when I saw excursions onto the ice offered at El Chalten and El Calafate, I just had to go... There are at least four glacier walk/treks available at El Chalten and El Calefate. I went on the mini ice trek in El Calafate and the Viedma glacier ice trek out of El Chalten. Both required boat rides to get to the glacier walk site. The El Chalten boat ride is a lot longer so the entire day is taken up by the boat ride and ice walk. Only about 2/3rds the day is taken up by the boat ride and ice walk at Perito Moreno glacier which leaves an hour to ... read more

Unfortunately I´ve only really had a very quick taste of Argentina. After Tores Del Paine we crossed over from Chile to explore Argentina´s Los Glaciares National Park from a small town called El Chaltan. I had never seen a glacier before in my life so to visit the world famous and giant Porito Morino Glacier was brilliant. These massive rivers of frozen ice really are beautiful but it was seriously cold there too. On one of the days I was able to do an ice trek which was one of the best things I have done. It was a full on 12 hour adrenalin packed day which started at 7am and involved a 2 hour hike to the bottom of the glacier where we then had to strap ourselves into a harness and pull ourselves over ... read more